Gloves off as players lose grip

COLLINGWOOD power forwards Travis Cloke and Quinten Lynch could be forced to find new gloves on the eve of the season under a crackdown by the AFL.

As a result of an investigative report conducted by RMIT University and the AFL, and given to Fairfax Media, the league has found six types of gloves with greater silicon on the palm provided players with an unfair advantage.

Three of these were made by sports behemoth Nike, the brand used by Cloke. Nike's three banned gloves are the Vaporjet 2.0 Football Receiver, the Magnigrip Elite Remix 2.0 and the Superbad.

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The Under Armour Blur II, Ironclad Box Handler Safety and Gilbert Rugby gloves were also rejected. Lynch has used an Ironclad glove.

''The AFL commissioned research in response to concerns about gloves providing wearers with an unfair advantage,'' AFL spokesman Patrick Keane said. ''Some gloves have now been identified as falling into this category and under the AFL's discretionary powers will no longer be permitted to be worn.''

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Cloke's manager, his father David, said he would consult Nike about what to do next. ''I will give them a ring and check,'' he said.

Lynch became somewhat of a cult hero in his time with West Coast because of his penchant for removing his glove when having set shots at goal. Geelong forward James Podsiadly, Melbourne's Chris Dawes and Sydney ruckman Mike Pyke have also regularly worn a glove.

The introduction to the detailed report set out what Dr Patrick Clifton, Professor Franz Fuss and Matthijs Oomen, from the University of Twente in Holland, hoped to establish.

''In the 2012 premiership season approximately 10 AFL players regularly wore gloves by choice during league matches, and a further 10 players wore gloves for at least one game for injury reasons,'' the report said.

''The AFL is currently concerned with the potential competitive grip advantage gained by players who wear gloves against opponents who do not. The primary aim of this investigation was to recommend an appropriate maximum legal grip level for gloves utilised by players in the AFL competition, to avoid a significant competitive grip advantage.''

The report found in dry conditions the six banned gloves, with a high proportion of silicon on the palm surface, provided ''significantly higher'' average grip levels than the bare human hand across four tests. The tests used a Kistler force plate - a measuring instrument used in laboratories.

In wet conditions, only the Ironclad and Under Armour provided greater grip than the hand, albeit narrowly, indicating gloves surprisingly were of little help in the winter months.

''By merging the benchmarking for dry and wet conditions, the overall classification is driven by the results in dry conditions. In other words, the results for wet conditions do not generate any further glove models that exceed human performance,'' the report said.

Testing was conducted on the red and yellow Sherrin, with the banned gloves of more help on the red footballs.

Gloves are subject to AFL approval at the start of the year but can be used at any stage of the season.